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As influential as Sidney's thought was in America before and immediately after the Revolution, that of John Trenchard and Thomas Gordon, the authors of Cato's Letters, was even more so. “Cato” also surpasses Sidney in his public adoration of Machiavelli. Whereas Sidney is calculatedly circumspect in referring to Machiavelli, Cato exhibits no compunctions about associating himself with the Florentine; he has frequent recourse to the Florentine's thought, frequently names his source, and even refers to him as a “great authority” (16.121). Because Cato's influence was so wide and because he so overtly appeals to the thought of Machiavelli, it is necessary to ask what principles Cato derives and propounds from the Italian. Do his frequent appeals to the writings of this Renaissance thinker underscore his dedication to civic humanism and classical republicanism, or do they reveal, instead, his attempt to participate in a new and modern understanding of government and of the individual's place within it? Given the immediate circumstances of the publication of Cato's Letters, it is all too easy to accept the notion that they are expressions of the former – of a nostalgic longing for a lost world of virtuous dedication to the homeland. The letters, which took the form of a series of articles that appeared in the London Journal and the British Journal from 1720 to 1723, originate as a response to the crisis of the South Sea Company. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Hobbes and Machiavelli laid the foundations for this reconciliation of liberalism and republicanism. One sought peace above all, the other war. For the sake of peace, one favored the people; for the sake of war, the other promoted the interests both of the nobles and of the people to the extent compatible with that end. That end of Machiavelli, though, dictates that the love of glory and the desires for preeminence and domination flourish among the few – precisely those passions that produce those political occurrences, war and internal oppression, from which the many flee. Because Cato's thought represents the final synthesis, one can use it to assess the degree to which these two thinkers achieved their ends. Cato shows us that Hobbes's purpose ultimately won out, although his means did not. Nevertheless, this is a significant win for Hobbes's ambitions. Moreover, perhaps because of the addition of Machiavellian ferocity in service of the people's interest in peace and commodious living – interests repulsive to Machiavelli – modernity's purposes have all the more potency. Rather than arming an all-powerful sovereign, the people are to protect themselves with a Machiavellian ferocity; the people's purposes are given a more vigorous protection because they guard their interests for themselves with an intense vehemence born of an acute fear – an understanding that derives from the analyses of both Machiavelli and Hobbes – of violent death in war and of tyrannical oppression at the hands of the few. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Before the Restoration, Henry Neville had been an active republican. He was first elected to Parliament in April 1649, only a few months after the execution of Charles I, and was elected to serve on the Council of State in 1651. At that time he was “a favourite of Oliver [Cromwell],” but when Neville saw that the general “gaped after the government by a single person, he left him.” So far was Neville from being a favorite of Cromwell at this point that, when Cromwell expelled the Rump Parliament in April 1653, he included Neville among the members whom he criticized. Neville was back in Parliament immediately before the Restoration and brought forward for consideration “The Humble Petition,” which offered a proposal for an English republic modeled on Harrington's Oceana. That futile petition was far from Neville's only association with Harrington, of course. In addition to Aubrey's report that Hobbes credited him with having helped Harrington compose Oceana, Aubrey claims that he helped Harrington to win converts to his cause: Harrington's and “H. Nevill's smart discourses and inculcations, dayly at coffee-houses, made many proselytes.” A friend to Harrington to the last, he “never forsooke him to his dyeing day.” After the Restoration, Neville was careful to keep a low profile, at least for a time. Jailed in 1663 under suspicion of conspiracy, he traveled to Italy after his release. He published Plato Redivivus: Or, A Dialogue Concerning Government in 1681. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In his Discourses Concerning Government, Sidney undertakes to vindicate human liberty against the claims of Robert Filmer, whose Patriarcha maintains that nature and God dictate human dependency. Human beings, in Filmer's view, are born subject to a rigidly hierarchial chain of command that passes upward from the father, to the king, and finally to God. On the way to his repudiation of the Filmerian divine right of kings, Sidney produced the diffuse Discourses, which, among many other topics, considers the corrupting influence of monarchy, the unreasonable character of inheritance as a claim to rule, and the vigor of republics. Liberty, it becomes increasingly clear as his Discourses progresses, is best guaranteed through a republic. He acted on that belief throughout his life, although it has been said that his commitment to republicanism was “intermittent and inconsistent.” He fought on the side of Parliament and was wounded in battle at Marston Moor in 1644. He entered Parliament in 1646, where he somewhat surprisingly – given the glee he will later manifest in his Discourses when contemplating the punishment of wayward monarchs – opposed the execution of Charles I. He came to work closely with a group of republicans in Parliament, among whom was Henry Neville, whose family had shared friendships and alliances with his own that went back for generations. He actively supported England's efforts in the Anglo-Dutch war, which broke out in the middle of 1652, and he joined the Council of State later that same year. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Never mistaken as a man of principle, Marchamont Nedham is famous for his astonishingly rapid changes in alliances, writing at different times in support of Parliament, king, and Cromwell during the English Civil Wars and Interregnum. He began his career as a journalist in 1643 by writing for Mercurius Britanicus, a parliamentary newspaper. As a consequence of his use of the newspaper to disseminate his mocking humor, which he aimed directly at the king, he went to jail. He then changed alliances just in time to be on the losing side, taking up the Royalist banner and editing Mercurius Pragmaticus beginning in 1647 and continuing through June of 1649, with a minor interruption in publication after the execution of Charles I. This episode ended with him again in jail, but this time his captors were the Parliamentarians. In order to win his freedom, he agreed to write a pamphlet supporting the fledgling government, and to edit a governmental newspaper. He fulfilled the latter agreement when, the next year, he published The Case of the Commonwealth of England, Stated and assumed the editorial duties of Mercurius Politicus, a newspaper that John Milton supervised for a time. His two treatises, The Case of the Commonwealth and The Excellencie of a Free State, would offer his editorials from this newspaper in a more coherent form. During the Protectorate, he served Cromwell in the capacity of a spy. Later, Nedham opposed the Restoration when it appeared a foregone conclusion, and finally fled to Holland. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

It is said that Thomas Hobbes, after considering James Harrington's Oceana, surmised that Henry Neville “had a finger in that pye.” Even if Hobbes's conjecture that Neville was coauthor with Harrington is mistaken, Neville may, in fact, still be held partly responsible for Harrington's great work of political thought, though in an entirely different manner. According to John Aubrey, Harrington's contemporary and chronicler of the lives of prominent Englishmen, Neville encouraged Harrington to turn his literary aspirations from poetry to political discourse. If true, Neville's advice helped produce a prolific political writer passionately dedicated to the establishment of a commonwealth in England. Harrington published his great work Oceana in 1656 as a blueprint for the republican future he hoped to help usher into England, and between the occasion of the publication of his great work and the Restoration, Harrington attempted to make that future a reality by writing furiously to justify his model further and to defend it against its critics. In the process he collected a number of converts to his plan, who joined him in his efforts. The chaotic year of 1659 seemed to them to present an opportunity for the founding of that very republic. In July, Neville presented Parliament with “The Humble Petition of Divers Well Affected Persons,” which contained Harringtonian ideas for the establishment of a new government, but his effort was rebuffed. In the fall and winter of that year Harrington's famous Rota Club, which met in the evenings at a London coffeehouse, flourished. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]